The machines known up to today for harvesting sugar beets are generally set up for harvesting a single row of beets at a time, that is the machines can only harvest a single row although efforts have been made to be able to harvest at least two rows of sugar beets.
Thus for example one of these known machines for harvesting a single row has a structure comprising essentially a pair of sugar-beet extracting plows, a crop conveyor for lifting and loading the extracted sugar beets, this conveyor being constituted by endless chains passing over reversing sprockets of horizontal axis perpendicular to the direction of travel of the machine, this conveyor being provided laterally with respect to the pair of extractor plows, with a grillwork wheel provided with its axis inclined in a vertical plane passing through the axis of the return sprockets of the crop transporter for lifting and loading between the above-cited pair of extractor plows and the crop conveyor for lifting and loading, and that in this manner the lower part of the peripheral edge of this wheel is practically tangent and coplaner with one of the extracting plows of the pair of extracting plows whereas the upper edge of the peripheral rim of this grillwork wheel is aligned with the central open part of one of the return sprockets that is part of the crop conveyor for lifting and loading, a grillwork guide extending as a slide peripherally around the lower part of the edge of the grillwork wheel with respect to the direction of travel of the machine starting from the other extracting plow of the pair of extractor plows and this just up to the peripheral part of the return sprocket of the crop conveyor for lifting and loading. It was attempted to provide such a machine with a second pair of extracting plows at the front edge of the peripheral edge with respect to the direction of travel of the machine of the above-cited grillwork wheel, but this has not worked out in practice with respect to the possibility of the functioning of the machine as well with the harvesting of sugar beets by this second pair of extracting sockets and the loading of these sugar beets onto the grillwork wheel as a result of the position that the extractor plows of the second pair of extractor plows must take with respect to the ground and to the grillwork wheel itself as regards the quantity of sugar beets which are underneath a single grillwork wheel as a result of the limited space across the above-cited return sprocket for the unloading of the sugar beets themselves onto the crop conveyor for lifting and loading which for a normal speed of travel of the sugar-beet harvesting machine results in blockages and thereby results in damage to the sugar beets themselves and frequent breakdowns of the machine.